Playing it smart
in fight against graffiti
If the 85
smartphones in Paul Racs' office right now do their job, Los Angeles is about
to get a face-lift.
Racs is director of the city's Office of Community Beautification. Didn't know we had one, did you?
In a few weeks, he's going to give those 85 smartphones to 14 nonprofit community groups that make up the city's graffiti removal program. One of them is New Directions for Youth in North Hollywood.
Smartphone pictures of tagging will be fed into the databases of the Los Angeles Police Department and the City Attorney's Office so the next time a tagger is arrested, law enforcement can see if he's tagged 10 or 15 other places, too, Racs said.
The more "signature" tags found, the more community service or jail time the tagger gets when he's caught. The hope is that'll make them think twice or stop them from tagging, making L.A. a better- looking place. We'll see.
Last year, 32.7 million square feet of graffiti was removed from 630,000 locations in the city. The budget this year for graffiti removal is $7 million, Racs said.
Which makes the job Deena Mulverhill has been doing for the past 18 years that much more important. She runs TIP (Tagger Intervention Project) for New Directions for Youth.
"Our goal is to remove the graffiti within 24 hours," Mulverhill says. "Up and down. The quicker it comes off the less we get."
Her crews are made up mainly of taggers ordered by the courts to do community service time. Taggers still in school work eight-hour shifts on weekends, the older ones work weekdays on the crews.
"It used to be mainly gang graffiti, but now it's getting more social," Mulverhill says.
"More kids think it's cool. They're saying to other kids 'Hey, look how good a drawer, tagger I am.' Makes them more popular at school.
"We let them know it's harmful to the community, not only in property damage but a danger to themselves. There's a chance for retaliation when you cross out somebody's name.
"We used to throw some paint over the graffiti, but today it's more color-matching and bringing back a wall to its natural surface.
"We've had a lot of kids who were taggers come back and volunteer or join other programs we offer."
Over the years I've witnessed a lot of success stories at New Directions for Youth - kids this organization helped pull out of gangs and bad situations before it was too late.
If you look around the Valley today and think there's less graffiti than there used to be, it's because of the great job they do.
Racs is director of the city's Office of Community Beautification. Didn't know we had one, did you?
In a few weeks, he's going to give those 85 smartphones to 14 nonprofit community groups that make up the city's graffiti removal program. One of them is New Directions for Youth in North Hollywood.
Smartphone pictures of tagging will be fed into the databases of the Los Angeles Police Department and the City Attorney's Office so the next time a tagger is arrested, law enforcement can see if he's tagged 10 or 15 other places, too, Racs said.
The more "signature" tags found, the more community service or jail time the tagger gets when he's caught. The hope is that'll make them think twice or stop them from tagging, making L.A. a better- looking place. We'll see.
Last year, 32.7 million square feet of graffiti was removed from 630,000 locations in the city. The budget this year for graffiti removal is $7 million, Racs said.
Which makes the job Deena Mulverhill has been doing for the past 18 years that much more important. She runs TIP (Tagger Intervention Project) for New Directions for Youth.
"Our goal is to remove the graffiti within 24 hours," Mulverhill says. "Up and down. The quicker it comes off the less we get."
Her crews are made up mainly of taggers ordered by the courts to do community service time. Taggers still in school work eight-hour shifts on weekends, the older ones work weekdays on the crews.
"It used to be mainly gang graffiti, but now it's getting more social," Mulverhill says.
"More kids think it's cool. They're saying to other kids 'Hey, look how good a drawer, tagger I am.' Makes them more popular at school.
"We let them know it's harmful to the community, not only in property damage but a danger to themselves. There's a chance for retaliation when you cross out somebody's name.
"We used to throw some paint over the graffiti, but today it's more color-matching and bringing back a wall to its natural surface.
"We've had a lot of kids who were taggers come back and volunteer or join other programs we offer."
Over the years I've witnessed a lot of success stories at New Directions for Youth - kids this organization helped pull out of gangs and bad situations before it was too late.
If you look around the Valley today and think there's less graffiti than there used to be, it's because of the great job they do.
No comments:
Post a Comment